News

VisionFund contributes to the development of policy and practice in microfinance
and development. Some highlights of our recent initiatives are available here. If
you would like further information on any of the topics covered, or if you would
like to interview a VisionFund expert, please let us know.

A Commitment to Microfinance Plus

As part of
its new five year strategy, VisionFund International (VFI) will expand the
amount of work it does to integrate its products and services into development
and humanitarian sectors such as water and hygiene, education, shelter, energy
efficiency and emergency response in order to increase the impact for
communities and children.

Recent
successes from collaborative projects between VisionFund and World Vision have
shown the depth of impact that microfinance has when designed to complement
other poverty intervention initiatives. In 2013, when working within World
Vision’s resilience and livelihoods programmes, access to credit helped to
increase the collective income of a group of Tanzanian farmers by 140 per cent.
Similarly, the inclusion of microfinance into the response to Typhoon Haiyan in
2014 meant that over 9,000 children benefited when VisionFund developed a
‘recovery loan’ to complement World Vision’s rehabilitation work. Almost US
$2million was lent to over 4,000 people to help them rebuild their businesses
quickly and in full.

VisionFund’s new strategy – Building Futures Together – pledges to build
brighter futures for 9 million children each year by 2019. Other key outcomes include:
increasing the growth of its microfinance institutions to offer a wider range
of services to more clients, developing its livelihoods work in rural areas, being
a voice of influence within the industry and securing the funding to support
its delivery.